Emery admits Arsenal have pushed Koscielny too hard

Joe Williams

Unai Emery was delighted with the performances of Arsenal youngsters Joe Willock and Eddie Nketiah during their FA Cup third round victory over Blackpool on Saturday evening.

Willock scored two goals in the first half before Alex Iwobi made sure of the 3-0 win in the second period with a tap-in.

And Emery was “proud” of his young Gunners while issuing an update on the fitness of defender Laurent Koscielny.

“We did everything today every player worked so hard,” Emery told the BBC. “It was important for us to win today because we have 13 victories in this competition so today with this mentality we did well.

“We imposed our quality on the game and stuck to our game plan and it was good to see the young players do well today as well.

“I am very proud of [Joe] Willock and Eddie [Nketiah] because Eddie had three good chances to score and Willock scored two. They train very well in the second team and with us in training as well. ”

On Koscielny’s injury, Emery added: “With Laurent we need to be calm with some moments in the training sessions because we are pushing him to play a lot of matches after his big injury so maybe he needs some time not playing but we had another player with big commitment to play in a different position today Stephan Lichtsteiner.

“Today Laurent said he could not play the match but now we have one week to rest before the next game and hopefully he will be OK.”